


New Rules

by goldensnitch18



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2019-05-20 00:57:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14884571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldensnitch18/pseuds/goldensnitch18
Summary: Hermione constructs a new set of rules designed to keep her out of a specific brand of trouble named Draco Malfoy. Rules make her feel safe and comfortable, but she always seems to forget that she isn’t very good at following them.





	1. New Rules

Chapter One: New Rules 

“For fuck's sake!” 

Hermione lifted her head from her pillow, her mind still foggy from sleep, sex, and too much champagne. She knew what she would see before her brain could even open her eyes: a head with shaggy blonde hair on the pillow beside her and a small, irritated woman standing in the doorway, her hands in fists on her hips. Ginny’s hair was stacked on her head, held in place by invisible ties. Her eyes blazed. 

“I think that’s my cue to leave,” Draco murmured. He closed the space between them and kissed her softly below her ear. 

“Probably,” she agreed, feeling beyond guilty at being caught with him in her bed … again. This was, however, the first time he had been in her bed since she had sworn him off, knowing that this game they were playing was only going to end in her heartbroken and disappointed. 

She watched him crawl from the bed, luckily with his pants already in place, and pull on his trousers. Ginny glared at him the entire time while she watched him collect his dress robes, tie, and wand. “See you later, Gin.” 

“Get the fuck out of my flat,” Ginny snapped at him. She took a step into Hermione’s bedroom and slammed the door behind her. “Really?” she asked. 

Hermione pulled the blankets over her head and groaned. “I know.” 

“I thought you were done.” Hermione felt the weight of her friend at the end of the bed and then the gentle tug of her blankets being pulled away from her face. She didn’t want to face Ginny or what she had done, but the situation was beyond that now. 

“I was. I am. God, I don’t know. He’s just …” 

“Really bad for you.” Ginny shook her head and sighed softly. “You know I don’t care if you want to be with him, but you’ve said over and over that being with him isn’t really an option. It just hurts you, and I hate seeing the aftermath over and over.” Hermione knew she was right. Ginny knew better than anyone what Draco moving in and out of her life did to Hermione. She would get one blissful night with him, perfect in every way, and then weeks of doubt, anger, frustration, and regret before it was time to rinse and repeat when she ran into him again. She and Ginny had been living together for nearly five years, so her friend had witnessed the cycle each time Hermione lived through it. 

“I know. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. He’s a cocky, rude shit. He’s incapable of being with one person. He’s constantly making my work difficult. But, I just … I can’t say no to him. Anyone else, but not him.” Hermione groaned again and ran a hand over her destroyed hair. It was going to be a disaster to fix what they had done to it during the night. “I never should have let my guard down around him in the first place.” 

“Maybe you need to come up with some boundaries to help you avoid this.” Ginny waved at the side of the bed where Draco had been sleeping a few minutes ago. 

 

“Like rules?” Hermione asked, her eyes growing bright. That might just work. She was good with rules. Rules helped everything make sense. There probably wasn’t much sense to be made from this disaster with Draco, but it might help her to actually move on with her life. After all, that was the goal. That had been the goal for the better part of a year now. Ginny had tried over and over to set her up with guys, hoping that she would find something in one of them that would help her to separate from Draco once and for all. So far, her efforts had obviously been in vain. Hermione had even gone to the dinner last night with a date. The thought of ending the evening in her bed with Draco hadn’t even occurred to her. How did a strong, intelligent woman start the evening with a perfectly pleasant companion and end it with that asshole in her bed? 

“Yes, exactly like rules,” Ginny agreed. She stood then, moving over to Hermione’s closet. “Is your dress in here?” 

It took Hermione a few moments to realize that Ginny meant the dress she was wearing to the party at the Burrow today. “Shit, what time is it?” she asked. 

“Half past eleven,” Ginny called from the closet as the sound of sliding hangers began. 

Hermione nearly flew from the bed and into the bathroom. She turned the shower on and turned to look at herself in the mirror. Some days, she felt beautiful and confident in her body. Other days, like today, she wasn’t sure what in the world Draco saw in her, which immediately resulted in her being mad at herself for caring what he saw when he looked at her anyway. She shouldn’t care. She shouldn’t want him to see or feel anything when he looked at her, yet … 

She was in love with him. 

She wouldn’t admit that to anyone. Ginny didn’t know, or at least had never been told by Hermione. Draco was too clueless and self-involved to ever figure out that another human being might have actual feelings for him. She shouldn’t care what he thought about what he saw when he looked at her, but she did. Hermione sighed at her reflection and felt the water for temperature before stepping into the shower.

“Your dress is hanging out here. Do you need something for your head?” Ginny called from the bedroom. 

“Yes. Please.” Hermione called back, all too aware that the fog was turning into a full-blown headache now. The more she thought about Ginny’s suggestion to make rules for dealing with Draco, the more she thought it might be the perfect solution, but what kind of rules did she need to put in place? As water poured down onto her and began the process of clearing her mind, she imagined the things that always lead to this, their nights together in her bed, and started to compose a list in her head. 

Don’t read his post. Draco was surprisingly eloquent in writing when he wanted to be. He sent her letters at work frequently; she wasn’t sure why. He must enjoy messing with her mind. Mind games were one of his favorite things. That she had known for quite a while before she started winding up naked with him on a regular basis. It was impossible to figure out his intentions ever because she was nearly always sure that he was playing a game of some sort or another. 

Don’t talk to him alone. That was how she ended up here on this particular morning. She could still see the smirk on his lips from the moment he had closed the space between them last night. His lips had gone straight to her ear, kissing her softly between words. “Let’s get out of here,” he’d whispered, and it had seemed like the smartest thing in the world to do at that moment with no one around to see them leave. 

 

Don’t answer his Floo calls. This wasn’t a frequent problem. He liked to avoid contact with Ginny, even before she had been quite as adamant about him not being around. Despite Ginny’s connection to him through Harry, she’d never fully trusted him. This was probably because he’d never fully committed to being anything with Hermione, and Ginny knew that Hermione wanted a partner, not a toy. Occasionally, he would decide that contacting Hermione was worth risking putting up with Ginny’s attitude. 

Don’t let him in. This sort of went with the Floo, but also applied to the nights he showed up shitfaced at the front door after a particularly bad night at work, which led to her final rule; The most important one of all. 

Don’t be his friend. Hermione wanted him to be happy. She wanted him to figure out the parts of himself that were still hurting all these years later, because he was hurting. That much was clear to her, but helping him was killing her slowly. There was no just friends between them, and every time she watched him leave in the morning, a part of her went with him, chipping away at her own soul, damaging it. She had to love herself enough to force him to find another way to heal whatever was hurting him. 

As she pulled on the dress she had bought with Ginny for the party today, she looked at herself in the mirror again, trying to see herself with only her eyes, to push away what he may think, and focus only on what was truly there. She ran over the rules in her mind as she put on her makeup and swallowed the potion Ginny handed her. 

Don’t read his post.   
Don’t talk to him alone.  
Don’t answer his Floo calls.   
Don’t let him in.   
Don’t be his friend. 

She could do it. She was a smart, confident, independent woman, and she didn’t need him or his games in her life. She could do it. 

“You ready?” her friend asked. 

“Yeah, of course. Let’s go celebrate!” Hermione forced a smile. She really was happy for Harry and Ginny. They had been together since Hogwarts, working so hard to stay a pair as they each grew into their respective lives, and they were finally getting married. Harry had proposed just a couple of weeks ago, and Molly had insisted on having a celebration. Hermione was happy for them, but making the shitty decision to have Draco over last night and waking up to deal with the emotional consequences didn’t really put her in the mood to celebrate an engagement. 

XXX

“I’m sorry if I made you late.” Hermione heard his voice in her ear before she even realized that he was there. She jumped, taking a step forward as she did her best not to spill any of her champagne. 

“Fuck, Draco,” she whispered as quietly as she could. Harry was standing at the front of the tent thanking Molly and Arthur for hosting. Hermione was hiding in the back, trying to avoid the very person who had found her. 

“Well, I thought you would want to hear his speech, but we could slip off.” His hand ran down the back of her dress until he rested it at the swell of her ass. She turned to glare at him, trying desperately not to draw the attention of anyone else in the room. 

“Stop,” she told him, and he pulled his hand back as he smirked at Ginny and Harry in the front of the tent. They both seemed so effortlessly happy. Hermione knew their relationship itself wasn’t effortless. They both brought a considerable amount of baggage, but somehow they made it work. Hermione had never really been part of anything like that. Her own relationships seemed to get consecutively worse all the way up to whatever this wasn’t with Draco. 

“You’ve been avoiding me,” he told her. He moved to stand beside her. As he watched Harry he lifted a glass to his lips and sipped at the amber liquid within. “It was nice to get reacquainted.” 

A shiver ran down her spine at the memory of him in her bed, his body moving into hers as she pulled him down, kissing him deeply. “I told you I was done,” she reminded him as her skin tingled with the echoes of his fingertips. 

“You are a very confusing woman indeed. You never seem to know what you want, Hermione.” He was smirking now. The same damn smirk that he had perfected at Hogwarts. The same damn smirk that had driven her to terrible things behind closed doors. 

The rest of the guests in the tent began to clap. A few people were whooping and cheering as Harry grabbed Ginny by the waist pulling her close to kiss her. Hermione joined the applause as she turned to Draco. “For the record, I’m very done. I’m not interested. It won’t be happening again,” she told him. 

“If that is what you truly want,” he told her. 

“It is.” She looked back up at her friends and watched as the began to move through the small crowd, greeting their friends and family. 

Behind Draco, Hermione watched Ron walk into the tent. He gave her a small wave and joined them in the back corner. “Can we eat now?” he asked as he approached. He was wearing his Auror robes and looked exhausted. 

 

“Long night?” Hermione asked him. 

“Longest. Is Oliver here yet?” Ron turned to look around at the people in the tent. 

“He’s with Bill and Charlie,” Draco said, pointing out their table. 

“I better go see him. I’ll see you two later.” He said, and he left to make his way through the crowd. 

“Do you think they’ll make it?” Draco asked her, his eyes back to the couple. 

“Yes.” She was confident in her two friends. She had watched them grow up, watched them adapt and change and relearn who the other was time and time again as they transformed from children fighting things beyond their capabilities to adults following their own paths in life. 

“Blaise is getting divorced,” Draco said, a frown spreading across his lips. 

“Hasn’t his mother been married like eight times?” she asked. Clearly, the apple wasn’t falling far from the tree. 

“Something like that. But, then again my mother married once and look how that ended up.” He sighed, and Hermione tried not to get sucked into his sad backstory. His father was in Azkaban, had been since the war. Hermione hadn’t seen Narcissa once since. Not in person. Not in the papers. Not in a single current photo in Draco’s office. They never talked about her much. Sometimes, Draco would reference her vaguely like this, but nothing anything of substance, nothing that might indicate what she was doing with her life now. 

She was saved from having to come up with something to say by the appearance of Harry and Ginny. “Draco,” Harry said joyfully as he hugged the blond man to him, clapping him on the back loudly. 

“Congratulations,” Draco told the couple as he pulled back from his partner. His wide smile held no sign of the doubts he apparently had about the decision Harry had made to spend the rest of his life with one woman. 

“Thank you, Draco,” Ginny told him. Her irritation with him was so well concealed that Hermione wondered what Ginny could be hiding from her. She would clearly be very good at it. “Hermione, my Mum was looking for you,” she said, giving Hermione a smile. 

Hermione could have kissed her for giving her the out to step away from the conversation. “I’ll go find her then.” 

As she walked away, she heard Harry and Draco start talking work. “Might need to take a holiday during your honeymoon. I’m not pulling shifts with Norton.” 

“You can’t do that. I need you in the department meetings,” Harry told him, laughing loudly. 

“Granger can handle the meetings. She’ll keep us up to date,” Draco insisted, and Hermione wanted to turn around and set him straight, but there was no need. 

“I’m pretty sure Hermione has her own job to do,” Ginny told them both, and Hermione felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude for her friend once again. She had enough to deal with as Head of the Improper Use of Magic Office without worrying about leading up the Auror Department as well. Draco would just have to live with Norton while Harry was out.


	2. Chapter Two: Don’t Read His Post

Chapter Two: Don’t Read His Post 

The Monday morning department meeting was one of the only constants in Hermione’s job at the Ministry. Being the Head of the Improper Use of Magic Office in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement was a much more dynamic position than Hermione had ever expected when she had made the move from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Her position required her to lead up a variety of offices that fell under her leadership, each of which sought to enforce and regulate the International Confederation of Wizards’ Statute of Secrecy. 

In the beginning, Hermione had been upset about the promotion. It wasn’t that she thought the department wasn’t important, but rather that she wouldn’t be able to initiate enough change to make a difference. She had also remembered all too well the terrible things that Dolores Umbridge had achieved while holding the same office. She had found her hesitance to be unnecessary. Her position required her to be extremely involved with the disciplinary measures put in place in the magical world and gave her a voice in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement department meetings. It could easily be argued that the DMLE meeting was the most influential place to be outside of the Minister’s own advisory board. 

Having the ear of the Head of the DMLE was not a perk that Hermione was going to ignore. She utilized the meetings to the fullest and typically enjoyed attending them. Harry and Draco, however, typically did not. Harry was the Head of the Auror Office and had appointed his partner, Draco Malfoy, the position of Deputy Head. When Monday morning rolled around, she would make her way to the meeting room, claim her seat, spread her carefully organized topics for discussion, and prepare her notes. She was typically the first person in the room, and today was no different. 

By the time she was joined by another office head, she was settled and flipping through her latest report from the head of the Office for the Removal of Curses, Jinxes, and Hexes, making notes on the margins to remember for her own weekly office meeting that would occur that afternoon. By the time Harry and Draco wandered in together, laughing and carrying mugs of steaming tea, Hermione had finished her report and the room was bustling with activity. 

Harry walked around the table to his regular spot beside her, trailed by Malfoy. “Morning,” Harry told her, dropping into his chair after place one mug in front of her and other in front of his own seat at the table. It swiveled left and right as he looked around at the other office heads. 

“Morning,” she told him. Draco took the seat beside Harry, but his movements were much more careful, his body graceful as he took his chair and leaned back in it as if he was the department head himself. He always seemed to command a room this way, as if he had been raised to expect all eyes on him in any situation, which she supposed he probably had. She had found this ability intriguing in the beginning. If she was really being honest, everything about the way Draco carried himself professionally was intriguing. In light of the war, it was more common for the marked and their families to fade into the background. Narcissa’s invisibility was much more common than her son’s front row seat to the reformation of the Wizarding World. 

She would never forget Harry and Ron’s first day of Auror Training. Harry had come home dirty and exhausted to Grimmauld where they had been living together. His face was stretched the way it got when something was irritating him. She had spent the night listening to him guess what in the world Malfoy’s motives could be for joining the Auror department. Over the next four months, Harry had written about Malfoy multiple times in his letters to her at Hogwarts. She had watched on parchment as his skepticism and agitation morphed to something similar to pity, and finally a reluctant acceptance of what the other man was doing. 

The first time she saw Draco after the war was at the DMLE holiday party. She hadn’t been part of the department then, but Ron had brought her as his plus one. He walked in with that same assurance that he was in control. His dress robes melded to his body perfectly. His eyes seemed to shine like cooled steel as they moved across the room. Once he spotted Harry, he moved towards them with determination. He grabbed a glass from a tray as he moved, sipping at it. 

“Malfoy,” Harry greeted him, extending his hand. Draco took it freely, shaking Harry’s hand. It was such an odd sight that Hermione openly stared along with the majority of the people around them. “Potter.” He nodded at Ron then, who Hermione knew was not as close to acceptance as Harry had come.

They all stood there then, the four of them looking awkward and out of place as Draco stood across from them looking as if nothing in the world could possibly every penetrate his cool demeanor. “You know Ginny and Hermione,” Harry said awkwardly. 

“Yes, of course.” Draco had said. “Granger, it’s good to see you.” 

Hermione’s mouth had fallen open a little at that, and she tried to quickly stumble out words to cover it. “Yeah. You too.” 

He hadn’t stayed with them, not at that party, but it had been the beginning of something unexpected, something no one could have predicted. Harry and Draco had been appointed partners upon graduation of their training, and they had quickly shown that they excelled together. Ron often told her that watching them in the field was like watching two halves of the same person. To be fair, she hadn’t really believed him until she sat through her first DMLE heads meeting. It was one thing to watch Draco and Harry interact outside of work, but watching them in a meeting was nearly a thing of beauty. They played off of each other perfectly, their strengths corresponding with such perfect harmony with the other’s weaknesses. 

Today, the meeting started off slowly. The Head of the Department started in by reviewing information they all already knew, well, that they would know if they read their messages. Hermione suspected that more than one person present would be hearing it for the first time. It was disgraceful, really. They should be setting a better example for their employees, but some of them couldn’t be bothered with that, of course. 

It was during this review that Hermione noticed Draco’s neat handwriting join her own as she took notes. 

 

How was the rest of your weekend? 

If he was trying to get her to think about how her weekend had started, causing her the skin of her neck and cheeks to flush, he was successful. She put her hand on her neck, still facing the front of the room, hoping that he hadn’t noticed her reaction. She needed to ignore him. She needed to stick her plan. The words faded within a few seconds, and she went back to taking notes in peace until his writing shimmered back onto the page a few minutes later. 

I couldn’t stop thinking about you. 

Another game, this time in the middle of work. He clearly had no shame and wasn’t taking her insistence that she was done to heart. He would figure it out eventually, she supposed. For the time being, she grabbed her wand, and silently murmured a Blocking Charm on the parchment to keep his magic away from it. 

When she shifted her attention back to the conversation, it had shifted to something far more interesting: the Quidditch World Cup Britain would be hosting in two years. 

“Sir,” she said clearly, inserting herself into a pause. “I believe we discussed the Improper Use of Magic Office leading up the planning For the next cup directly with the International Confederation of Wizards.” 

“Yes, Granger. I spoke with them. They are expecting your owl to get started. I will put the entirety of the Department at your disposal for this.” 

“Excellent. Thank you.” She was sure that she could save the Ministry from the utter headache the last Quidditch World Cup had been, even before the Death Eaters had shown up. 

“Don’t thank me until it’s over. You may soon regret the request.” The lanky man at the head the table shook his head as if he thought she might be crazy.

“I find that with proper planning, nearly anything is manageable, sir,” she assured him, already adding ideas for her letter to the IWC onto her parchment. 

“If anyone can pull it off, it’s you.” 

 

XXX

Hermione stretched, her body humming and aching in the best possible way with the movement. She had been sitting for too long. She had worked late the last three days and then brought work home to the dining room table. Her mind was charging full speed ahead on the Quidditch World Cup preparations, but she also had to continue her normal workload, so she was finding it easy to fill her days and nights. 

Ginny sat across the table, staring down at a magazine filled with beautiful brides in the finest dress robes. “She’s mad,” she said for the fifth time that evening. “Mad. Mad. Mad.” 

“You’re her only daughter,” Hermione reminded her for the fifth time. 

“Hermione, this set of dress robes is half my salary,” she said, her eyes blazing with a sense of betrayal that Hermione found amusing, not that she would ever tell Ginny this. She thought it was atrocious as well, but Ginny seemed offended that the bridal wear even existed. 

“You know Harry can afford it,” Hermione told her. “He wants you to have everything you want.” 

“I don’t want this,” Ginny sighed, shutting the magazine and throwing it back into the stack which promptly fell over, spreading magazines filled with cake, flowers, and food across the table. “If I wore any of those robes, I would be thinking about how much it cost all night and terrified to ruin it. I wish my Mum understood that.” 

“Have you tried telling her?” Hermione asked. 

“Yes. ‘Looking doesn’t cost anything, dear,’” Ginny said in a perfect imitation of her mother. “Ron got off so fucking easy last year. I thought we were going to avoid all of this.”

“Well, he did marry a man, and they both insisted on eloping. Your mother didn’t have anyone to fret over about these things. Maybe that’s why she’s being so silly about yours.” 

“Clearly, we should have shoved Ron into bridal robes, Hermione. Damn it.” Ginny laughed then, and Hermione joined in at the image of Ron in one of the bridal sets in the magazine walking down the aisle to a beaming Oliver. It was too good not to laugh. 

“You and Harry will figure it out. You should put all of this away and not think about it anymore tonight.” Hermione began to gather all of the magazines again, putting them back into a neat stack before she waved her wand and sent them away from the table. 

“I know we will. Mum is just insistent that these things need to be decided so that we can start planning, but Harry and I are just trying to enjoy being engaged, you know? We aren’t in a huge rush.” She lifted her glass of wine to her lips to take a drink. 

“You need something to distract her with. Maybe Bill and Fleur will have another baby for you,” Hermione teased. 

“Oh, yes.” Ginny actually giggled. “I know you have a six-month-old and a toddler running the house already, but could you consider getting Fleur pregnant again to distract Mum from my nuptials for a few months?” 

Hermione nearly snorted her own wine. “What could go wrong with that?”

“Maybe George and Angelina are ready for a baby,” Ginny said then, grinning conspiratorially. “I’ll have to ask him.” 

“He is probably less likely to hex you for suggesting it,” Hermione agreed. 

“You know, you could find someone,” Ginny told her innocently. “Mum loves you. If you were starting to settle down, well … it might distract her.” 

“I highly doubt my dating would pull her away from Witch Weekly’s Blushing Brides Summer Edition,” Hermione countered. 

“It might. And, you deserve to have someone.” 

“I’m fine alone. It will happen eventually.” Hermione took another drink of her wine and hated how quickly the world Draco had written on her parchment at their meeting earlier in the week popped into her head. 

I couldn’t stop thinking about you. 

She couldn’t stop thinking about him either. That was the problem. 

 

XXX

On Friday, Hermione had to leave work on time. Harry, Ron, and Oliver were coming over for dinner. Because of this, she worked through her lunch. It happened fairly often, and she kept a small stash of snacks in one of her desk drawers to tide her over on days when it did happen. 

Hermione was in the middle of drafting a sentencing recommendation and eating an apple when a paper bag arrived unceremoniously on her desk. She let out an undignified squeak of surprise when it popped into the room, and her hand flew to cover her racing heart as if she thought it was going to leap out of her chest. She silently chided herself for the reaction as she reached to grab the note attached to the bag. 

You really should stop skipping lunch. Tell me I can see you this weekend. 

She frowned down at the familiar print, her eyes reading over the words again and again before she pulled the bag to her and opened it. She knew from the smell exactly what it was before she even opened it. He had sent her Thai, one of her favorite meals to eat when she was working and couldn’t be bothered to cook. They had eaten Thai together on multiple occasions, most of them while they were naked. 

Eating it felt like a betrayal of her rules, but her stomach growled at her, and she conceded that if she didn’t eat it, no one else would. She compromised by waiting to begin her meal until after she walked his note over to her fireplace, threw it inside, and used her wand to burn it to ash. She then vanished the ashes to his desk. Hopefully, he would get the message.


End file.
